


I Gotta Learn to be a Wiser Fool

by Demonfeathers



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, dark!Will
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:37:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demonfeathers/pseuds/Demonfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will connects the dots one night and this final straw turns out to be the one that broke the FBI profiler's mind. Will deals with the fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'm a paper doll, you can tear me up

It comes slowly at first.

Will wakes up in a cold sweat most nights, whether from jerking back into reality in a rush of panic, or from the night air cooling his skin as he blinks back into awareness in places he shouldn’t be. His dreams are filled with blood and fur, pale curved antlers and pale curved necks. He doesn’t understand why it is so difficult for him to shake Garret Jacob Hobbs out of his head. No matter how many other serial killers Will profiles, no matter how many other designs Will fills his head with, Hobbs refuses to be dislodged, the stag snorting softly in the back of his head. He should have been replaced already with the ones that followed him, or at the very least the nightmares that the cluster fuck at the Hobbs household left him with should have receded to just that, nightmares. Not these hallucinations, these night terrors. Will would be the first to admit (but only in his own head- or, perhaps, to Hannibal) that he was hardly stable these days, and getting worse all the time. But Hobbs was hardly the first case to go sour, and Will doubted his would be the last either. So why the constant subconscious fixation on the mentality that Hobbs had invoked? It was true he’d never had such a lasting personal investment with a case before, with Abigail still alive and his connection with her. Still, Will didn’t think that was it, or at least not the only reason for his jumbled mentality. Mentalities? He didn’t even know anymore.

No, there was something else to this. It was more than Garret Jacob Hobbs at this point, although he may have been the one to start it all. Perhaps that was where the confusion lay, the reason he was having such a hard time untangling his own head. He was determined to see this as the remnants of Hobbs’s mentality, but if there was something else, some other stimuli that was invoking this mindset that he was misconstruing as Hobbs, then… then perhaps he wasn’t as far gone as he thought. Perhaps there was someone _else_ ….

Shit.

Abigail? It was a possibility. He was convinced when facing down Jack’s suspicions that she wasn’t a willing party to her father’s extracurricular activities, and he stood by that, but she may have changed her mind about things since then. It was entirely possible. Hobbs had been borderline grooming her for it, after all. Still, Will would turn his suspicion to her only as a last resort. So who? Who else did he have at least semi-regular contact with, who he had become acquainted with during… oh. Oh.

It fell into place as Will stared up at his darkened ceiling, sweat chilling his skin as his dogs panted quietly in the corner and his stomach dropped through the mattress beneath him. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, trying desperately to un-think his revelation, to come up with someone, anyone else who it could be- but no. Now that he had turned his mind to it, all the evidence was there, waiting to be arranged. Will had been right. It wasn’t Hobbs’s design he was seeing.

It was Hannibal’s.

Little bits and pieces clicked into place, throwaway comments, odd little ticks of behavior, all those _fucking jokes-_ Will started laughing, he couldn’t help himself, it was too much and he couldn’t take it all at once. He started laughing and he couldn’t stop, even as his dogs whined at him from the corner in concern. It was Hannibal all along, Hannibal who put that girl on the stag’s head in the field, Hannibal who was killing people and turning them into his very own renditions of the Wounded Man while taking their organs home and cooking them- eating them- _feeding them_ \- Will tumbled over the side of the bed and gagged, thinking back to every meal Hannibal had ever prepared for him, oh god, the _cannibal_ -

And promptly dissolved into hysterical laughter again, because _Hannibal the cannibal_ , it was the last straw and Will felt something in his head that had been bending under the strain for a long time finally snap. He has no idea of how long he lays there, laughing and crying and hyperventilating under a mental break that has been years and lifetimes and far too many borrowed mindsets in the making. This was always going to happen, one way or the other, Will laying on his bedroom floor howling with hysterical laughter while his dogs surround him and start to howl with him. This was always going to be how it ended.

Except, perhaps not.

Eventually, Will comes back to himself. His dogs are all around him, curled around him protectively and half laying on him. He just lays there for a while, staring blankly at a lone sock trapped beneath his dresser across the room. He doesn’t know what to do. Hannibal is the Chesapeake Ripper, that much is clear now. Hannibal kills people, takes their organs, takes them home and cooks them, and feeds them to his guests. He has been getting closer and closer to Will for months; Hannibal emotionally manipulating Will through this relationship while making Will more and more dependent on him is highly likely. The problem is, knowing that he’s been manipulated and played like a lute by Hannibal doesn’t make those emotions just go away. Will is still dependent on him, still needs him; Hannibal is still- God help him, Hannibal is still his _friend_. Despite everything, that isn’t going away. So now, what to do about it.

Will picks himself up, dislodging his dogs and rubbing their heads absently in apology. He moves to the kitchen, going through the motions of making himself a cup of tea on autopilot. It’s only once he’s sitting at his kitchen table with a steaming mug in his hands that he lets himself think about it again. Hannibal has become the person he is closest to by far since they met. Whatever reasons Hannibal has for leading him on, catering to him, whatever his motivations for manipulating Will, that fact isn’t going to change. Artificial on Hannibal’s end or not, it never was on Will’s, and he can’t just switch that off. So, he still cares about Hannibal. He would rather not see Hannibal come to harm. On the other hand, Hannibal is a cold-blooded serial killer and a cannibal to boot, who feeds his victims to his unknowing guests. He is a murderer, cut and dried, and needs to be locked up behind bars. He wants to protect Hannibal, but he needs to do his job and catch the Chesapeake Ripper. Will stares at the phone laying on the table across from him. He has to call Jack, tell him that Hannibal Lecter is the one they’ve been looking for all this time, right under their noses. It’ll be difficult getting Dr. Lecter convicted- while Jack understands that Will can make accurate leaps of logic on evidence that wouldn’t even be considered by most people, it will not be enough to get a case through court. However, once they know who they should be focusing on, it ought to be easy enough to find concrete evidence to back up Will’s claims. Jack will believe him, Will knows. He may not always act like it, but he’s seen Will solve enough impossible cases to know better than to doubt him on this. Jack will be able to catch the Ripper, just as soon as he knows where to look. Will just has to tell him.

Will reaches out and picks up the phone.

“…Hello?”

“Hannibal. I need to talk to you.”


	2. I'm dying in the cupboard underneath the stairs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Overall title and chapter titles come from Kyla La Grange's "Vampire Smile", which has pretty much been on repeat the entire time I was writing this and will probably continue to be so.
> 
> Some Hannibal POV mixed in this time.
> 
> Edit: Just realized I've been calling Winston the dog Wilson this whole time. The mistake was mostly in what I have of chapter 3 but I've fixed it here now too. Someone slap me if they see me doing something silly like that again.

It’s a long, nerve-wracking wait for Hannibal to arrive. Will happens to glance at the clock on the microwave at some point; it’s 3:42 in the morning. He winces briefly but doesn’t let himself fully regret his decision. His decision to call Hannibal instead of Jack, his decision to do so immediately, before he’s quite gotten a handle on himself again, when he can feel himself still shaking apart at the seams and he knows it will be impossible to hide his discovery from Hannibal. His decision to do so now, and here, at close to 4 in the morning in the middle of nowhere, where there will be no help forthcoming from anyone but his dogs if, or more likely, when, Hannibal decides that Will needs to be silenced before he can get that rather belated call in to Jack after all.

He won’t regret it. He refuses. Even if Hannibal kills him, well then, that was probably the end goal anyway. Will knows that he’s not acting rationally, he knows that something in him broke when he finally put things together, but he can’t bring himself to care. Probably because of whatever broke. He suppresses another semi-hysterical giggle. His dogs watch him with cautious eyes from where they’ve arrayed themselves around the perimeter of the room. They know something’s very wrong, worse than usual. They won’t leave his side until he orders it, and even then they might not go. He paces more quickly, moving back and forth across his small kitchen with barely contained energy building inside him, not rage, not fear, something without a name that makes him want to turn and dash out the front door, something that makes him want to run until his heart gives out, not to or from anything but just _out_. Run until the buzzing in his skull stops and his heart is pounding for a reason he can understand, and even the stag can’t outrace him. Whether he’s running it to ground or the other way around he hasn’t decided yet. His mind is going in circles and tripping over itself, faceplanting in mud and blood and-

The front door opens. His dogs are instantly on their feet, growling. Footsteps cross the living room and Hannibal cautiously steps into the kitchen, eyeing the dogs somewhat warily before getting a proper look at Will and going still. Will’s voice, when he finds it, comes out much more child-like than he had intended.

“You _broke_ me” Will accuses.

Behind him, Winston snarls.

 

When Hannibal got Will’s call at 3:30 am, he had been somewhat unsurprised. Will’s mental stability had been getting worse and worse lately, as Jack pushed harder on the Chesapeake Ripper case and Will chased hallucinations like a dog chases its tail. Hannibal knew how tangled the inside of Will’s mind had become since that first case they worked together. After all, he had helped get it to that point. He recognized Will’s gift, and knew it could represent a danger to him. When Will was so obviously confused and vulnerable at the end of the Hobbs case, well, who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth? Subtly twisting Will’s mind a little more with every interaction, all while making Will more and more dependent on him for his so-called “help”; it was a delicate balance between actually helping and outright breaking him. So no, picking up the phone after being woken at an unholy hour of the morning was not such a surprise to Hannibal; Will calling him for help before anyone else after some night terror or bout of sleepwalking was something that Hannibal had been working towards for a while. He distantly wished that Will had held off for a few more hours, but pushed that thought away as he picked up the phone on his nightstand.

“…Hello?”

“Hannibal. I need to talk to you.” Will’s voice was somewhat alarming. He sounded manic, frantic, something wavering through his voice that Hannibal couldn’t quite place. Desperate and a bit panicked, as he had suspected Will would sound, but there was more to it. Hannibal felt a slight chill of unease. There was something more here than one of Will’s nightmares.

“Of course. Would you like me to come over?”

A pause. A harsh breath.

“Yes. Come over. I have to- I need- please.”

“I’ll be there in about an hour, give or take. Is that acceptable?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s… that’s fine. I’ll see you then.”

A click. Will had hung up. Yes, there was something off here, Hannibal mused as he started getting dressed. Will would normally never risk something so rude as to hang up so abruptly on Hannibal. Perhaps he was getting closer to that mental break than Hannibal had intended. Better to be prepared for every eventuality, in that case. He would take a knife from the kitchen on his way out.

By the time Hannibal reached Will’s house, it’s been over an hour and everything is dark and silent. There’s a square of light from the window in Will’s kitchen, a shadow occasionally passing back and forth behind the curtain. Hannibal walks up to the front door and tries the handle. It’s unlocked, so he lets himself in, pausing for a moment at the sound of low growls coming from the kitchen ahead of him. When he walks forward, however, it is with confidence. Will would never let his dogs attack him, even if Will ever did figure out Hannibal’s true nature. He wouldn’t dare let them potentially come to harm. Nonetheless, the dogs have never reacted quite so harshly to his presence before. Something is definitely wrong. He eyes them for a moment to make sure none are going to try to attack him before finally raising his eyes to look at Will.

He stops.

Will is… insane. That is the only word for it. It is immediately clear that if Will hasn’t already had a complete mental break, then he is teetering right on the edge of one. The reason for the unusual level of hostility from the dogs is now obvious. Will has always had a higher level of connection with his dogs than Hannibal had seen from anyone else before, and they are clearly picking up on and feeding off of Will’s unstable state. Unstable and hostile dogs. That might prove to be a problem after all. But first, Will is the real problem here, and he takes priority. Hannibal holds himself still, waiting for Will to make a move. Will stares at him for a few moments, jaw clenched, before speaking, his tone that of a wronged child.

“You _broke_ me.”

Behind him, Winston snarls, his head low and his lips pulled back over black gums and white teeth, eyes fixed on Hannibal. The other dogs shift and growl, hackles rising. Hannibal glances at them cautiously before refocusing on Will. This was not good. If Will was accusing Hannibal of breaking him, he may have put together too much. Had he not been subtle enough?

“I’m afraid you’ll have to clarify.”

Will made a frustrated noise, whirling around and raising his hands to pull at his hair as he began to pace again.

“You _broke_ me. I was- not good, but not like _this_ , and now you broke me, I was supposed to call Jack, now look what you’ve done!” He’s frantic, barely contained energy in every movement. He’s breaking down, broken down. If Hannibal were prone to swearing, this would be an ideal time for it. It’s clear that Will has at least put together that Hannibal has had some hand in his less than stable mental state; the question now is just how much he’s unearthed in that treacherous head of his. “And just what is it that I’ve done, Will?”

Wrong question. Will makes a noise in the back of his throat- small and animal, desperate and cornered and _trapped_. One of the dogs shifts anxiously and whines, all of them clearly on edge and unsure of the situation. Will is a cornered animal, if only trapped in his own mind and not reality. Hannibal begins to cautiously reach for the knife he stashed in his jacket before making the trip here, because a cornered animal is the most dangerous and not just because it is the most likely to lash out, but because it is the most likely to deviate from previously established codes of behavior. And an unpredictable enemy is by far the most dangerous, every time. “Easy, Will. You need to tell me exactly what’s wrong if you want me to be able to help you. That’s why you called me over, correct? To help you?”

Will jerked his head up to stare at Hannibal again, hands still fisted in his hair as he stood poised as though to run at any moment. Hannibal found himself holding his breath, hand frozen around the handle of the knife in his pocket. The moment dragged out, even the dogs holding themselves still and silent as they waited on their master to make a move. After an eternity, Will slumped, hands dropping back to his sides as the tension drained out of his shoulders in resignation. “Yes” he whispered, lowering his gaze to somewhere in the vicinity of Hannibal’s shoe laces. “So tell me what’s wrong, Will” Hannibal said gently, waiting for Will to look at him again. Will slowly raised his head, looking at anything else he could before giving up and looking Hannibal in the eye again. There was despair in every line of his features.

“You’re the Chesapeake Ripper.”

Hannibal’s hand tightened white-knuckled around his knife as he stared at Will. He debated denying it, but there was really no point. Will had figured it out. But there was still hope. Will had said that he was supposed to call Jack, but had called Hannibal instead. There was the possibility that this was a trap, that Will was bait and attacking him would be providing the FBI team proof of Will’s claims, but it was a very remote possibility. Will was too far gone to be lying to Hannibal now. It seemed the relationship he had built with Will had paid off. He had advanced warning, and a chance to silence Will before he got to Jack with his knowledge. Fortuitous indeed.

“…I see. And just what do you plan to do about that, Will?”

Will trembled slightly, closing his eyes and hanging his head.

“…Nothing.”


	3. I want a scar that looks just like you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the very short chapter! I wanted to put something up before I got wrapped up in preparations tomorrow for my Mom's birthday on Friday. I promise I'll keep writing this weekend!

Will turns his head away, eyes still closed, looking to anyone else in the world as though he were trying to physically distance himself from the admission he just made, and maybe he’s doing that too, but it’s not how Hannibal will see it and it’s not how he meant it.

That same movement bares his throat a bit, after all.

He waits for the feeling of cold metal sliding through his throat and hot blood pouring down his neck.

After an eternity he opens his eyes to see why he isn’t dead, straightening up to look back at Hannibal. Hannibal, who has a knife in his hand and no expression on his face. Hannibal, who isn’t looking at Will. Will follows his gaze down between them.

Winston is crouched in front of Will on the cold linoleum of the kitchen floor. He is not growling. He doesn’t even have his teeth bared. He doesn’t need to. For all that Winston is a loveable, gentle furball most of the time, Will is suddenly reminded that all dogs, no matter how distantly, are somewhere in their family tree descended from ancient wolves. Even from behind Will can see the coiled energy in his dog, the tautness of every muscle waiting to spring. He is not looking at Hannibal’s eyes in challenge. He is staring at Hannibal’s throat, and suddenly Will can see how it will all play out, as clear as if it had already happened and he was reconstructing it. Hannibal will make a movement, blink, twitch a finger, and Winston will leap. Hannibal will bring the knife up in self-defense as he jumps. As Winston’s jaws lock around Hannibal’s head or arm, depending on Hannibal’s reflexes and how fast he brings up his other arm to shield himself, the knife will slide between Winston’s ribs, puncturing lungs or heart. Winston will be dead in short order and Hannibal will be injured. Winston’s actions will set off the other dogs. They will swarm Hannibal. Either Hannibal will kill them, no doubt sustaining various injuries as he does so, or the dogs will kill him, several of them no doubt becoming injured as well in the fight. Someone will die here tonight, and with seven dogs versus one man with a kitchen knife, Will is fairly certain he’ll have at least a few dead dogs and one very dead man on his hands by the time the night is over.

After all, people forget that while the dogs love Will and are well-behaved as can be around him, they all started off as strays, living off the streets and doing what they had to in order to survive. They’re fighters at heart, each and every one.

Will can’t let this happen.

He drops to his knees, wrapping his hands around Winston and pulling the dog into his chest, ignoring the flinch and aborted snap at his head for the sudden movement. He clings to Winston, ignoring the trembling in his limbs as he knots his fingers in Winston’s fur and holds him tight, holds him back.

There is a long pause as some of the tension drains out of the other dogs, just a bit. Hannibal still doesn’t move. Then-

“Why?”

“What?” asks Will, finally raising his head from where he had buried it in the scruff of Winston’s neck.

“Why will you do nothing? You have previously shown yourself to be quite intent on catching the Chesapeake Ripper. Why do nothing now that you know? Why not… catch me? You could have called Jack, set up an ambush for me. I have no doubt you would have succeeded, as I never expected you to put things together so quickly, although I can see now that I have underestimated you. So why call me first? Why present yourself and your knowledge to me, a lamb for the slaughter? Why _nothing_?”

Will swallows, ducking his head back down to Winston’s neck and squeezing his eyes shut.

“…Because you’re my friend. I… you might not have meant it, manipulating me to save yourself, keep your bases covered, but… well, you were successful” Will laughed bitterly. “You’re… you’re my friend, even if I’m not your’s. So.” Will swallowed. “I can’t… I can’t bring myself to turn you in. So congratulations. You’ve broken me.”

Another long pause. The night was turning out to be ripe with them, it seemed. Eventually, Hannibal sighs, tension leaving his shoulders as he allowed his grip to slacken around his knife. Will watches him out of the corner of his eyes, still keeping his face mostly buried in Winston’s fur as he clutched the dog like an over-sized teddy bear.

“I think you’d better come home with me tonight, Will” Hannibal says, something like resignation and something like (like, like, _maybe_ ) fond exasperation in his voice.

Will looks around the kitchen at the array of dogs that stare expectantly at him from every corner.

“Um” he says.

 

In the end, they somehow manage to get all the dogs into the bed of Will’s truck. Hannibal has a duffle bag of Will’s spare clothes and a toothbrush in his backseat and a sack of dog food with dog bowls and leashes in his trunk. Will leads the drive back to Hannibal’s house, Hannibal trailing carefully behind him. Will’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel every time he catches sight of Hannibal’s headlights in the mirror. The dogs are quiet, Winston lying on the passenger seat staring sadly at Will while the others arrange themselves in the back. When they eventually pull up to Hannibal’s house, the sky is starting to lighten on the horizon. Will climbs out of his truck and lets the dogs out, standing there wearily with them surrounding him as Hannibal pulls up and gets out, straightening his shirt and adjusting his cuffs. Will heads over to unload the trunk and pile everything on the porch while Hannibal grabs his duffle and unlocks the door, heading inside. Will hesitates in front of doorway, staring into the darkness. One of the dogs brushes against his leg.

It looks like the abyss.

 

The abyss stares back with Hannibal’s expectant eyes.

 

He walks inside.

_(The door closing behind him should feel like a death toll, but oh, it sounds like chains breaking.)_

_(He thinks perhaps that should frighten him.)_

_(He thinks perhaps it should bother him that it doesn’t.)_


	4. You'll need me and we can be obsessed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this chapter, I ran out of steam for a bit there. I'm still a little stuck on how to get from point A to point B, but I'll figure it out. No plans to abandon this, I promise. It's too fun!

Hannibal shows Will to the guest bedroom, keeping his face carefully impassive as the dogs troop past him and take up posts around the room, a few of them jumping onto the bed. Will winces apologetically but doesn’t tell them to get down. He can’t, not after what they’ve done for him tonight. Hannibal doesn’t comment, telling Will to get some sleep and that the bathroom is through the second door on the right before closing the door behind him and heading back to his own room to get a few more hours of sleep. Will strips his pants off that he’d thrown on before leaving the house and crawls under the covers, dogs settling in around him. Listening to their soft breathing all around him, Will finally falls asleep. He’s too exhausted to dream.

Hannibal gets up late that morning, allowing himself to stay in bed longer than he normally would. At least Will had the courtesy to have his epiphany and subsequent breakdown on a Friday. There will be no appointments scheduled for a few days, so Hannibal can focus on the problem at hand. He goes through his morning routine, eventually ending up in the kitchen preparing breakfast. Well, he glances at the clock, brunch at this point. Hmm, something nonthreatening until he has a better handle on Will’s mental state, but still a challenge of how far he’s willing to go with this. Perhaps a subtle reminder as well, just in case.

Eggs it is.

 

Hannibal carries a tray with Will’s breakfast on it upstairs, balancing it as he knocks on the guest bedroom door and waiting for Will’s garbled mumble of acknowledgement before sweeping inside. He had intended to set the tray on Will’s lap, but that proves to be impossible due to the fact that Hannibal can’t find Will. Instead there appears to be a large pile of fur and assorted tails and odd limbs in the middle of his spare bed.

He stares.

The pile stares back.

He blinks.

Suddenly the whole thing heaves and separates, dogs streaming off the bed and running around in circles while Will appears flailing from underneath them.

“No, no, shoo, gerroff, stop it, get off of me, all of you, go, get.” Will manages to locate his glasses with some effort, craning around one of the smaller dogs who seems to be determined to climb onto Will’s face.

“Sorry about that” he says, finally managing to dislodge the dog and replace it with his glasses before spotting the tray in Hannibal’s hands.

“Is that for me? You didn’t have to bring me breakfast in bed, Christ, that’s…” he trails off slightly uncomfortably. Hannibal simply gives him a bland smile and places the tray over Will’s legs, sitting delicately on the edge of the bed cleanest of dog fur and plucking his own cup of coffee from the tray. “Of course I did. You are my guest after all. And besides, I wanted to” Hannibal replies, taking a sip from his mug.

“Oh” Will says quietly, picking up his fork and poking at his eggs. He spears a piece of meat that’s been scrambled in, holding it up and staring at it. He looks at Hannibal.

Hannibal sips his coffee and waits, eyes sharp over the rim of his cup.

Will’s fingers tighten around the handle of his fork, hand shaking slightly. He swallows hard. Neither of them say anything.

Will’s movements are not hesitant, however, when he takes the bite.

 

The stag snorts in approval from the corner of the room.

The dogs simply beg for a piece of their own.

Hannibal smiles.

Will ignores them all and eats his breakfast.

 

Things start to fall into place after that. Will eats the food Hannibal presents him without comment, occasionally slipping pieces to the dogs that have become a somewhat permanent fixture, much to Hannibal’s ill-concealed exasperation. Will catches him slipping them bones in the backyard once and a while, though. The dogs love them, and by extension Hannibal as well now that Will is no longer on edge around him. Will carefully doesn’t look too closely at the gnawed remains scattered on the back porch. He doesn’t need to, after all. He thinks it should make him upset, knowing what they are, where they came from. Instead, he’s just happy the dogs are getting some attention from someone other than him. None of them are very well socialized with other people, including Will.

Perhaps that is why this is so easy. He never did have a good grasp of what was… appropriate. Came with the package, apparently. And wasn’t that a bitch growing up, too- always knowing just what was bothering everyone around him, but only making things worse when he tried to say anything, to help. It’s part of the reason he went into the field he did- you can’t fuck things up with the dead, after all. They’ve already hit rock bottom, as it were.

And now he has too, it would seem. He’s gone mad, it’s pretty much official. He’s been wandering around in a daze since the night he figured it out, with Hannibal circling around him doing what on anyone else would be called walking on eggshells. He lost control of his life long ago, handing over the reins to Jack and doing what he was told like the good dog he was. He couldn’t even sleep most nights, his own gift out of his control and turning against him. Hannibal was pretty much the only semi-stable point he had, and now that’s gone crashing and burning too.

 _Fuck_ that.

If he couldn’t have control over his life when he was sane and normal (for a given definition), then he’s damn well going to take back control now.

After all, if he’s going to be insane and keep being best friends with a cannibalistic serial killer, then what’s the point if he can’t have fun with it?

Will begins to grin. Beside him, Winston starts to wag his tail as the stag stomps its front hooves into Hannibal's carpet in a silent promise.


	5. I'm getting drunk on your noble deeds

A week later, Hannibal comes home with blood splatters on his cuffs. Will watches him from the doorway of the living room while a few of the dogs attempt to lick Hannibal’s wrists clean. After rescuing his shirt sleeves from them, Hannibal looks up and catches Will’s eyes. After a moment, he speaks.

“I could use a little help carrying some groceries down to the meat freezer, if you feel up to it.”

Will’s expression doesn’t change as he tilts his head and considers Hannibal, eyes lingering on the blood at his wrists. It’s shockingly red against the white of Hannibal’s dress shirt.

Hannibal’s expression doesn’t change either. He waits.

Will straightens up from his slouch against the doorframe. “Sure” he agrees, “why not.”

Hannibal is polite enough to turn around before letting his lips twitch into the beginning of a smirk.

Will pats Winston’s head on his way out the door to the trunk of Hannibal’s car.

 

Hannibal’s trunk is lined in plastic sheeting. The corpse inside was once a young man, covered in four-day old stubble and a wrinkled shirt. He looks like he works in a cubicle for a living.

“Who was he?” Will asks, tilting his head to consider the imprints on the bridge of the man’s nose- until very recently, he wore glasses.

“Does it matter?” Hannibal replies, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his shirt sleeves. Will shrugs. “Just curious. Never did quite figure out your exact methodology for how you picked ‘em.” Hannibal smiles, a bit of real emotion touching it.

“William, you must know me well enough by now to understand that I simply cannot _abide_ rudeness.”

“Ah” Will nods. “Let me guess, some sort of…hmm, IT worker? Telemarketer?”

Hannibal’s voice is approving when he replies. “Very good, Will. The second.”

Will snorts in amusement at the thought of Hannibal staying on the line with a telemarketer long enough to get the information necessary to track them down. Hannibal smiles sidelong at him, sharing the joke.

It’s the most comfortable Will’s been around another person since elementary school.

He shakes off the echo of discomfort that thought brings (a tiny panicked voice in the back of his head thinks _wrong wrong wrong_ and tries to point this out) and basks in the feeling for a moment.

“So what’d you need me to do then? Hold the feet?” Will asks, turning his attention back to the contents of Hannibal’s trunk.

“Upper body, if you don’t mind. His feet are somewhat less… messy, and I’ve already rather ruined my shirt sleeves.”

“Yeah, yeah, give me the dirty work,” Will grumbles, rolling his eyes, but he pushes up his sleeves and begins to reach for the edges of the plastic sheeting around the body’s head. Between the two of them they manage to get the whole mess, sheeting and all, down into the basement with minimum fuss, although Will has to speak rather sharply to the dogs to get them to leave the body alone and get out of the way. They put the body in the middle of floor next to a drain, laying out the edges of the plastic sheeting and making sure that nothing dripped on the way down. Hannibal’s basement is well lit and spacious, but doesn’t look very well used. There’s a large chest freezer against one wall, but it looks rather old and Will’s never seen Hannibal come down here to fetch anything out of it. He prefers his meat fresh, after all, and storing any food long term seems to go against what Will knows of his culinary habits.

“So why’d you bring him here?” Will asks, turning his attention from surveying the room back to Hannibal.

Hannibal tilts his head. “Whatever makes you think this isn’t normally where I bring my meat before I’ve prepared it?”

He isn’t being deliberately obtuse, Will knows this. He’s asking for Will’s thought process, he’s asking for a list of the evidence and how it fit together in Will’s head. Will feels warm despite the chill air of the basement at the thought.

“This isn’t how the Ripper kills, although to be fair the Ripper has a lot fewer cases attributed to him than I’m sure have actually occurred. So you don’t always use that method, presenting the corpses that way. But it’s clear you don’t use this room that much. It’s got that disused, almost musty smell that rooms like guest bedrooms get when no one goes in them for a long time. I think you get your ‘meat’ a lot more often than that. So you don’t use this room every time, and I would say hardly at all. You take organs as the Ripper, choice pieces, a body part here and there. There’s no real need to haul an entire body clear back here unless it wasn’t safe to collect what you wanted at the scene, and in that case I doubt you’d risk bringing a body to your home. You must have other places, safe houses and the like, for that sort of thing. And if you’ve ever used that freezer for storing meat you planned on eating at some point, I’ll eat my hat. If I had a hat.” Will finished with a raised eyebrow at the ancient piece of machinery. He doubted it was even plugged in.

Hannibal’s smile was pleased and proud. “Very good, Will. You are entirely right. I don’t usually bring the whole body home. Why do you think I’ve done so?”

Will eyes him for a moment.

“To test me. You wanted to know if you could push me on this, if I’d balk at having the evidence of what you do shoved in my face this way.”

Hannibal’s expression gentles. “And it would seem that I have nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah,” Will says, looking back at the pale corpse at their feet, “looks like it.”

The stag nudges his hand at his side and Will scratches its nose absently.

“Wine?” asks Hannibal.

“Sure” Will replies, heading for the stairs with the sound of hooves on cement following him.

It’s rather comforting.


End file.
